Lebenslaufanalysen

Jäger, Herbert; Schmidtchen, Gerhard; Süllwold, Lieselotte

doi:10.1007/978-3-663-14369-7

Cited by 36 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Moreover, very little controlled research has been carried out with an adequate psychiatric evaluation. On the basis of uncontrolled empirical studies on left-wing German militants, on members of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, and on members of Hezbollah, terrorists exhibited no signs of psychiatric disorders 15 17 In Northern Ireland, a clinical examination 18 comparing 59 ordinary killers with 47 political murderers found that the latter were generally more stable, had a better family background, and showed significantly less evidence of mental illness.…”

Section: Psychopathology Of Terroristsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychopathology of terrorists

2017

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Terrorist behavior represents a subtype of human aggression probably determined by a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors, as well as by peculiar environmental influences and group dynamics. As regards terrorists' psychological characteristics, the available studies (mostly carried out with no sound scientific design) have failed to identify the common or typical pathological personality traits of modern terrorists. The popular opinion that terrorists must be insane or psychopathic is still widespread; however, no evidence exists that terrorist behavior may be caused either by prior or current psychiatric disorders or psychopathy. Not surprisingly, some theories have proposed social factors and non-pathological psychological traits as predisposing elements for terrorist acts, but they generally lack of empirical validation. Moreover, most of these theories do not explain why, even if so many people are exposed to the same social factors or show the same psychological traits, only a tiny minority of them join a terrorist group. Therefore, it is mandatory that systematic and scientific investigations be carried out in order to understand the possible bases for terrorist aggression, including the early detection of possibly associated psychopathology, and to design an appropriate counterterrorism prevention policy. Clinical Implications' In the data of the available literature, there is no significant evidence of a link between psychopathology and terrorism.' Even if the presence of a mental disorder is detected in a terrorist, it cannot be concluded that the disorder was the cause rather than a consequence of terrorist activity.' Systematic and scientific investigations are needed in order to understand the bases for terrorist aggression and to design an appropriate counterterrorism policy.

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Section: Psychopathology Of Terroristsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychopathology of terrorists

2017

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“…Moreover, the study of extremism (conducted in extremist groups) represents an interesting avenue for research as problematic behavior such as terrorism (Post, 2005) has roots within branches of extremism. Indeed, it is quite noticeable that although the search term -terrorism‖ yields 5900 hits in the Thomson social sciences database (search performed June 1st , 2010), only a handful of articles and book chapters have investigated terrorists themselves (e.g., Jäger, Schmidtchen, & Süllwold, 1981;Knutson, 1980, Post, 2005Rasch, 1979).…”

Section: The Study Of Extremismmentioning

confidence: 99%

A psycho‐political profile of party activists and left‐wing and right‐wing extremists

Hiel

2011

European J Political Res

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Profile of political party activists 2 A psycho-political profile of moderates and left-wing and right-wing extremists Abstract.The present study tests for differences among samples of activists from moderate and extreme political ideologies. Previous studies comparing ideological groups have been restricted to tests of betweengroup differences in the means of relevant political psychological variables, thereby neglecting eventual group differences in the variances, meanings and nomological networks of the tested variables (i.e., their psychometric properties, the pattern of correlations among these measures, and the presence of mediation and moderator effects). A first exploratory study used data from the European Social Survey (total N = 7314) comparing groups of political party members on the basis of their scores on a selfplacement left-right scale. The second study (total N = 69) constituted an in-depth test for the presence of differences between samples of political activists of moderate parties, communists, anarchists, and right-wing extremists. The present results revealed that there is a fair amount of heterogeneity within left-wing and right-wing extremists, indicating a substantial amount of within-group variance of social attitudes, values, and prejudice. Moreover, the extremist ideologies are best approached as distinct ideologies that cannot be reduced to extreme versions of moderate ideology, and differences in the meanings and nomological networks of the various extremist ideologies were also obtained. It is erroneous to consider members of extremist groups as being ‗all alike'. Moreover, the findings obtained in samples of political moderates do not seem to be a particularly solid basis for theories about extremism. We also present psycho-political profiles of communists, anarchists and right-wing extremists.KEY WORDS: anarchism; authoritarianism; communism; European Social Survey; extremism; ideology; values; right-wing ideology Profile of political party activists 3 What does it mean to be an ‗extremist'? Dictionary.com defines an extremist as a person who goes to extremes, especially in political matters, or someone who is a supporter or advocate of extreme doctrines or practices. In the present studies, we tightly stick to this definition, by investigating people who locate themselves on the extremes of a political left-right self-placement scale, and we studied members of extreme doctrines (i.e., anarchism, communism, and extreme rightists) as well. We believe it is of utmost importance to stress that specific political ideas should be considered within their specific cultural-historical time-space or context. Some ideas may be considered ‗very extreme' in one context, while these ideas may be very ‗moderate' in another context. As Sidanius (1985) has put it: -… belief in political and social equality of Blacks would most certainly have been a very ‗extreme' idea in the America of 1776 and is now becoming a very moderate idea in the America of 1984‖ (p. 639). According to the same logic, m...

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“…Individuals typically enter the underground through preexisting social networks (Zald & Ash 1966;Wilson 1973;Snow et al 1980;Jäger et al 1981;Reynaud 1984;Clark 1983Clark , 1984Snow & Machalek 1983;Wasmund 1983Wasmund , 1986Klandermans 1984;Crenshaw 1986). As a group moves deeper into the shadows, its remaining societal connections are gradually abandoned and replaced by stronger interpersonal bonds within the group itself.…”

Section: The Organizational Framementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Terrorists manifest a range of often quite different personality traits and come from a wide variety of backgrounds. It is also generally agreed that most terrorist activity is not due to mental pathologies (e.g., Rasch 1979;Heskin 1980Heskin , 1984Corrado 1981;Ferracuti & Bruno 1981;Jäger et al 1981;Süllwold 1985;McCauley & Segal 1987;Ferracuti 1990;Reich 1990a;Silke 1998). Although some researchers have suggested that terrorists are abnormal "in more subtle ways" (Crenshaw 2000, p. 407), most observers believe that terrorists are "disturbingly normal" (Hoffman 1998, p. 7).…”

Section: The Psychological Framementioning

confidence: 99%

Terrorist Decision Making

McCormick

2003

Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci.

233

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Key Words terrorism, political violence, irregular warfare, levels of analysis s Abstract How do terrorists and terrorist groups make decisions? And what influence do terrorist decision-making styles have on the course of a terrorist campaign? Efforts to answer these questions have centered on three sets of theories. In order of generality, these are (a) strategic theories, in which the decision to employ terrorism and related forms of political violence is considered to be an instrumental choice; (b) organizational theories, in which the sources of violence are found in the internal dynamics of the terrorist group itself; and (c) psychological theories, in which the decision to employ terrorism is explained within the framework of individual psychology. Most observers agree that these lines of inquiry are not mutually exclusive, but each offers a distinctive approach to terrorist decision making. This essay examines each of these theoretical approaches in turn. It concludes with a brief discussion of the decision-making constraints that help shape terrorist life cycles.

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Lebenslaufanalysen

Cited by 36 publications

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Psychopathology of terrorists

Psychopathology of terrorists

A psycho‐political profile of party activists and left‐wing and right‐wing extremists

Terrorist Decision Making

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